Spatial Task Allocation in the Circular Economy: Analyzing the Localization of Physical Loops and the Mobility of Digital Architectures

This paper evaluates the spatial implications of the macroeconomic transition from linear to circular economic models. Utilizing a task-based framework built from the Open Repair Alliance core database and World Bank development indicators, we construct hypothesis-specific unbalanced country–year panels from an initial dataset spanning 30 unique nations (NT = 139). We analyze the conceptual tension between non-routine manual circular tasks and abstract digital circular tasks using fixed-effects panel regression models estimated on merged analytical samples following data integration and sample attrition. We identify a positive, marginally significant statistical association between localized circular intensity and cross-border digital service exports (γ1 = 0.0168, p = 0.0847). Crucially, our interaction regressions provide empirical evidence that domestic digital infrastructure readiness significantly moderates this relationship (λ3 = −0.0285, p = 0.0493), indicating a weaker association between localized circular activity and domestic high-wage technical employment as regional digital connectivity improves. Supplementary Files The Spatial Task Asymmetry of the Circular Economy.ipynb — Complete Google Colab notebook containing the full experimental workflow, including data acquisition, preprocessing, panel construction, econometric estimation, diagnostics, and figure generation. final_experimental_panel.csv — Final merged country–year panel dataset used for the hypothesis-specific econometric analyses. regression_results_summary.csv — Summary regression output containing estimated coefficients, standard errors, test statistics, and p-values. regression_results_FULL_including_countries.csv — Complete regression output including country fixed effects and all estimated model parameters.